Fertilizers

A fertilizer is any natural or manufactured substance that is added to soil to provide one or more of the chemical elements that is essential for plant nutrition. A fertilizers purpose is to basically increase plants growth. Plants obtain elements they need through the air and soil. After harvesting crops, all the elements that have gone in the plants are taken away. Farmers used fertilizers to restore the elements in the soil. The difficulty of this is not adding the fertilizer, but adding the right type of fertilizer and the right amount of it. It is impossible to decide if soil need fertilizer by looking at it, but it is possible to test it.

Since ancient times, farmers knew that plants grown on land that hadn’t been planted on yet were richer than those that have had years of farming on. This caused them to move to new untouched areas, and had the same result each time. Over time they discovered that it could be improved by adding certain substances to the soil. Substances that were used on soil in ancient times were varied from the people, the plants grown and the type of soil. Eventually fertilizer technology improved. More discoveries were found, the Egyptians were known to add ashes from burn weeds to soil. The Ancient Greek and Roman used different animal waste matter depending on the type of soil or the plant being grown. Romans also used marl and liming materials to supply calcium and reduce the soil’s acidity. It was also know that if you grew vegetables before growing wheat was beneficial. Other types of materials used to add to soil were sea-shells, clay, vegetable waste, waste from other work that was happening and other kinds of trash. These substances were frequently used as fertilizers until bones and deposits of sodium nitrate were first used as chemical fertilizers, which then created natural and synthetic fertilizers available in numerous forms around the world.

Plants cannot live without primary nutritional elements. These elements are nitrogen, phosphorous, and potassium. Usually, the nutrient content of a manufactured fertilizer is expressed as nitrogen (N), phosphorus pentoxide (P₂O₅), and potash (K₂O). The sources of nitrogen in fertilizers is used for many chemical reactions including ammonia (NH3), diammonium phosphate ((NH₄) ₂HPO₄), ammonium nitrate(NH₄NO₃), ammonium sulfate ((NH₄) ₂SO₄), calcium cyanamide (CaCN₂), calcium nitrate (Ca(NO₃) ₂), sodium nitrate (NaNO₃), and urea (N₂H₄CO). Phosphorus is generally used as a phosphate, such as diammonium phosphate ((NH₄) ₂HPO₄) or calcium dihydrogen phosphate (Ca(H₂PO₄) ₂). Potassium comes from potassium sulfate (K₂SO₄) or potassium chloride (KCl). The phosphorus content of a fertilizer is specified as the amount of P₂O₅ because this is the form of phosphoric acid containing no water. Secondary elements include calcium, magnesium, and sulfur. Micro nutrients include small amounts of boron, chlorine, cobalt, copper, iron, manganese, molybdenum and zinc. Combing all these elements, a plant can grow to be health and full of nutrients. Plants obtain all these nutritional elements from the soil. If the soil is lacking in any of the primary elements, fertilizers must be added. From ancient times, farmers have discovered to do so.

The benefits of using fertilizers are that it does its job. Fertilizers provide the soil with more chemical elements essential for plants growth. It increases plant growth, so that farmers or anyone else who uses them produce a bigger harvest. Fertilized crops grow faster and resist drought, diseases and insect attacks. With benefits, there are also disadvantages in using fertilizers.

Disadvantages to using fertilizers using too much of the fertilizer, causing build up of the elements. This causes deaths, injuries or the quality of the plant is affected to plants. Also, it can be toxic to plants, or it can prevent plants from using the other elements that is needed and slow down the growth process. In grasses, the extra potassium that is taken by the grass causes nutritional disorders in the cattle and other animals that eat it. Grass and leafy green vegetables are harvested before they mature contain free nitrate. When too much nitrogen fertilizer is used, cattle and infants eat them develop digestive disorders. Another disadvantage to fertilizers is that it can harm the environment. The amount of nitrogen in fertilizers that is applied to the soil is small. Much is washed into the surrounding bodies of waters or filters into the ground water. This adds amounts of nitrates to the water that is drank by the public, which medical studies that have shown that this is that cause of urinary and kidney disorders. Lastly, eutrophication is a disadvantage into using fertilizers. Eutrophication is caused when a body of water is overly rich in plant nutrients, which makes the growth of algae and other aquatic vegetation to expand. If it continues on for a long time, the area will turn into a bog. The elements causing this are nitrogen and phosphorous. Nitrogen is leached from soil in the form of nitrate and phosphorous is present in sewage and industrial waste caused by detergents and non-agricultural activities. Manufacturers have the responsibilities of making sure that their product is not harmful to this consumers and the products their using.

Manufactures monitor their product at each stage of production, to ensure that the quality of the fertilizer. Raw materials and the finished products are subjected to various physical and chemical tests. For each test they must meet the specifications previously developed. The characteristic that are tested include pH, appearance, density and melting point. Fertilizer production is governmentally managed, composition analysis tests are run on samples to determine how much nitrogen, phosphate and other elements affecting the chemical composition there is. A lot of other tests are also performed, depending on the type of fertilizer being used and its purpose.

The purpose of using a fertilizer is to enhance the soil’s chemical elements that are essential for plant nutrition. We depend on fertilizers to provide us with a bigger harvest and faster plant growth. Without fertilizers it would be difficult to find fresh soil that contained chemical elements essential for plants nutrition. We need fertilizer to provide us with the food we eat, but we have to be careful about how we use them and know of the side effect that could happen to the environment.

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Nov 23-25 – 3 hours, researching

Nov 27-29 – 3 hours, putting it all together

Nov 30 – 1 hour, editing

For more information:

http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/index.cfm?PgNm=TCE&Params=A1ARTA0002780

http://www.madehow.com/Volume-3/Fertilizer.html

Resources:

Cooke, G. W. (2009). Fertilizer. In Encyclopedia Americana. Retrieved November 23, 2009, from Grolier Online http://ea.grolier.com/article?id=0155100-00

Lichy, C. T. (2009). fertilizer. In Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia. Retrieved November 23, 2009, from Grolier Online http://gme.grolier.com/cgi-bin/article?assetid=0105060-0

Lessman, G. M. (2009). Fertilizers. (A. L. Allen, Rev.). In The New Book of Knowledge. Retrieved November 24, 2009, from Grolier Online http://nbk.grolier.com/cgi-bin/article?assetid=a2010090-